I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for configuring and reconfiguring calls in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, data, messaging, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and/or transmit power).
A wireless device (e.g., a cellular phone) may operate in one of several modes, such as an idle mode or a connected mode, at any given moment. In the idle mode, the wireless device may monitor a paging channel for page messages that alert the wireless device to the presence of an incoming call and/or overhead messages that carry system and other information for the wireless device. In the connected mode, the wireless device may actively exchange data with one or more base stations in the system, e.g., for a voice or data call.
The wireless device may perform configuration when transitioning from the idle mode to the connected mode and may perform reconfiguration while in the connected mode. Configuration refers to setup of various parameters to use for communication. Reconfiguration refers to modification of parameters used for communication. Reconfiguration may be performed for various reasons such as, e.g., to change a data rate, to change or add a service, to change the quality of service (QoS) for an existing service, to hand over from one frequency to another frequency (e.g., to balance system loading), to change state within the connected mode (e.g., in order to conserve power at the wireless device), and so on.
For reconfiguration, the wireless device and the wireless system typically exchange signaling or messages to convey various parameters to use for transmission on the downlink and uplink. These parameters may indicate, e.g., the channels, data rate, encoding scheme, data block size, and so on, to use for each link. A reconfiguration message may be very long, especially if there are many parameters to exchange. A long reconfiguration message typically requires a long time to transmit and possibly retransmit for successful reception, consumes valuable radio resources, and causes a long delay for reconfiguration, all of which are undesirable.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to more efficiently perform configuration and reconfiguration in a wireless communication system.